Stuff

There are two new polls out tonight. The daily YouGov poll for the Sun has topline figures of CON 33%, LAB 42%, LDEM 9%, UKIP 8%, so after an eleven point lead yesterday we are back into the middle of the normal nine to ten point lead that YouGov have averaged around for the last month or so.

Secondly there is a new poll from TNS BMRB, conducted over the last three days, which has topline figures of CON 30%(-2), LAB 42%(+2), LDEM 11%(+1), Others 17%(-1). Changes are from their last poll in June.

The National Patient Safety Agency (which no longer exists by the way) was not “UK-wide”. It was an English NHS agency.

It has been replaced by the NHS Commissioning Board, which is also England only.

That was the first and only organisation I checked, and my sample came up with a result showing Jayblanc to be 100% wrong. I’m satisfied that this meets my personal stringent statistical criteria for sample research. Or, in other words, I can’t be arsed checking out all the rest.

Ta for the sympathy – I am a very lucky person in many ways [most ways actually, thinking across the world] but its still a great source of frustration as a musician who no longer has to spend the greater part of his time teaching to now lack the “well” time to progress in quite the way I had expected.

I think “normal” and “typical” are construed differently. For example I think [note “think”] that DC is more “normal” than TB although I dislike the tory party a lot. But, in a world sense, none of us in these islands are really “typical” if one thinks, health, longevity, life-style, affluence and so on.

So I dispute what you say although I understand it: most people [I would say} think “normal” means not bonkers, like, for example….. oh, I dunno, can’t think of anyone.

I actually genuinely enjoy your point of view even if I don’t always agree with it. I hope I don’t come off as too much of a self-righteous a**hole when responding to your comments.

What I find really intriguing is that I generally consider your to be a leftwinger yet you come to conclusions that are actually far more similar to American right wingers. That’s not to say that you’re a right winger. Instead I look at it as fascinating how different political ideologies and completely different methodologies can arrive at a similar result.

@ Amber Star

“That wasn’t meant to be as self-congratulatory as it came across, sorry.”

I don’t think you come across as self-congratulatory at all.

@ Billy Bob

“He really said that… “out the backside of No 10?. Does backside not actually mean arse-end in American English then? The only way the comment makes sense is if Romney mistook the beach volley-ball court in Horse Guards Parade for Stratford Olympic Park.”

It doesn’t but it’s an odd way of talking.

“This is a grotesquerie of Dubyantine proportions – which is all the more worrying given SoCalLiberal’s comment about the same NeoCon cabal lining up behind him – a fact not picked up on yet by media commentators on this side of the Atlantic.”

I feel like Dubya at least knew some basic diplomacy and he knew that he couldn’t offend the Brits. He knew from the get go that he had to butter up Tony Blair. When it comes to our two longtime allies, Americans are okay with the French being offended but not the British.

@ Stuart Dickson

“That made me laugh.

The Olympics is all about two things: politics and sport. In that order.

Accusing the First Minister of “injecting politics unneccessarily into” the Olympics is like accusing the Pope of “injecting religion unneccessarily into” Easter.”

I’m not sure about that. There were a lot of people who were unhappy with Jimmy Carter for announcing a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics because of his politicization of them. The Olympics are supposed to be a place of athletic competition, not a political competition. Doesn’t always work out that way and international and political issues have spilled over (apparently the 1956 Olympic men’s waterpolo match between the Soviet Union and Hungary left the pool water red).